Calgon--take me away!

GRANDSTANDING, 101
Leave it to the ever-opportunistic PETA folks to jump all over the tragic euthanizing of the horse Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby last weekend.  They’re wanting the jockey to be strung-up by his nut sack for hurting the horse—even though it appears he did all he could to save her once he realized there was a problem—and of course, PETA wants horse racing banned, yadda x 3.  Never mind that these thoroughbreds are treated like royalty and some of them live better than I do.  Horses do get hurt sometimes—it’s an unfortunate part of the sport—and this kind of thing happens all the time in horse racing, but I never hear PETA bitching about this happening at, say, our local track, The Woodlands—only when it happens at a high-profile event like the Kentucky Derby.  Where’s PETA when horses get hurt in rodeos and such, too?  This is just like when the Native Americans protest the use of Indian names for sports teams only when the Washington Redskins make the Super Bowl—funny how they aren’t dedicated enough to their cause to also protest at a routine weeknight Chicago Blackhawks game in January.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING, PART I
In light of what transpired at the Derby, this probably wasn’t the best week to trot out (sorry!) that VitaminWater energy drink TV commercial that features 300-pound Shaquille O’Neal as a jockey riding a race horse…

TIMING IS EVERYTHING, PART II
Dumb question, but was it really necessary for the Civil Defense goomers to do their regular monthly tornado siren test yesterday morning when conditions were semi-ripe for more thunderstorm activity?  Hell, the friggin’ things worked just fine last Thursday night during our little siege, thus rendering the test redundant anyway…

SHADES OF "I AM NOT A CROOK"…
That Austrian weirdo Josef Fritzl, who confessed last week to imprisoning his own daughter in his basement since 1984 and sexually abusing her now claims that media coverage was “unfair” and “entirely one-dimensional”, since he chose not to kill his daughter and the children he fathered with her.  “I could have killed all of them, and no one would have known.  No one would have ever found about it.”  Gee, how thoughtful of him!  “I am no monster,” he says, and he's blaming the media for making him out to be one.  Sorry Chief, but I'm going to have to invoke the old "If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck" axiom here.  Sick bastard...

WE BE PIMPIN’…
True story—we scanned two female patients at my workplace today whose last names were Ho and Hooker.  If we had another patient named Harlot, we’d have had a trifecta!

EWWW!
I read where 82-year-old actress Charlotte Rae (AKA Mrs. Garrett on "Facts Of Life") allegedly does a love scene with Adam Sandler in his new movie You Don't Mess with the Zohan.  Now I realize Sandler has this penchant for playing lovelorn schlubs who never score in his films, but aren’t we getting a little desperate for ideas now?

MINI MOVIE REVIEW
I watched Charlie Wilson’s War on DVD last night and was underwhelmed by this overrated movie.  Even the usually-reliable Tom Hanks was disappointing here.  Hanks doesn’t do as well when he plays arrogant characters (Ladykillers is another example), and that fake Texan drawl grated on me after a while.  And is it just me, or did Julia Roberts bear a strong resemblance to an unfunny Lucille Ball with blonde hair in this flick?  At least this film was mercifully short—only an hour and 35 minutes.

CLASSIC MISHEARD LYRIC #81
"Parasite"—KISS (1974)  "I was sad and wanting her to go-o…"  I’ve listened to this song for 32 years, but thanks to my iPod, I now know that this lyric does not go, "I was sad at watching her take over…"

COME ON DOWN!
I’ve also been watching the new "The Price Is Right" DVD collection recently.  I grew up watching game shows in the ‘70s, and TPIR was a regular view for me even though Bob Barker is a total tool.  One disc features a few episodes of the original ‘60s TPIR with Bill Cullen as host, and they were rather dull by comparison, but an interesting time-capsule, all the same.  The prizes weren’t quite as extravagant back then—they even gave away live animals like dogs and horses and such, and it was funny to see the show being sponsored by cigarette companies as they did in the ‘60s.

Then they get into the version of TPIR everyone knows today that debuted on CBS in 1972.  These DVDs are worth it alone just to see the short skirts and big '70s hair on models Janice and Anitra—both of whom I lusted after on a regular basis back then—and if you’re into shag carpeting, these DVDs are must-see TV!  You’re sure to get a kick out of all those Chevy Vegas and AMC Gremlins they tried to give away, too.  And if you look real closely in one of those early Barker shows, when they open that turntable thing where they played the pricing games at the rear of the stage, you can clearly see some stagehand pulling a rope down near the floor to rotate the thing.

I SHOOK UP THE WORLD!  I’M A BAAAD MAN…
Congratulations to me for successfully and correctly completing a New York Times crossword puzzle for the first time ever yesterday.  I’m somebody now!